In a few words
A vivid, intimate, narrative memoir celebrating the life of Booker Prize-shortlisted and Women’s Prize-winning Australian novelist Kate Grenville’s mother
In a few words
A vivid, intimate, narrative memoir celebrating the life of Booker Prize-shortlisted and Women’s Prize-winning Australian novelist Kate Grenville’s mother
Wonderful
A work of imaginative sympathy, it is as successful as it is audacious . . . Clear, authentic and utterly engaging . . . A microcosm for the changes taking place on the world stage in the period spanned
Wonderful
Kate Grenville is one of Australia's finest writers . . . her great skill as a writer is to take the barest of biographical details and spin them into something of intricate moral complexity
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*NEW NOVEL RESTLESS DOLLY MAUNDER SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024*
FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AND WOMEN’S PRIZE-WINNING AUSTRALIAN NOVELIST
Kate Grenville often takes inspiration for her fiction from her family history and this extraordinary memoir about the life of her own mother, Nance Russell, reveals why.
Born to an unhappy marriage and into a deeply sexist society, Nance worked hard for everything she had, and while the world changed around her, she went on to university, opening businesses and raising a family.
One Life is just as much a universal story as it is Nance’s. Beautifully captured by her daughter, it draws on the tales passed down by word of mouth, creating an evocative portrait of life in twentieth-century rural Australia and a deeply intimate and caring homage to a mother’s struggle.
More about
the book
*NEW NOVEL RESTLESS DOLLY MAUNDER SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024*
FROM THE BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED AND WOMEN’S PRIZE-WINNING AUSTRALIAN NOVELIST
Kate Grenville often takes inspiration for her fiction from her family history and this extraordinary memoir about the life of her own mother, Nance Russell, reveals why.
Born to an unhappy marriage and into a deeply sexist society, Nance worked hard for everything she had, and while the world changed around her, she went on to university, opening businesses and raising a family.
One Life is just as much a universal story as it is Nance’s. Beautifully captured by her daughter, it draws on the tales passed down by word of mouth, creating an evocative portrait of life in twentieth-century rural Australia and a deeply intimate and caring homage to a mother’s struggle.
Kate Grenville is one of Australia's finest writers . . . her great skill as a writer is to take the barest of biographical details and spin them into something of intricate moral complexity
A compelling read . . . very moving . . . Grenville's feminist instincts, which run quietly through her life and writing, built on her mother's example
Grenville inhabits characters with a rare completeness . . . She writes with a poet's sense of rhythm and imagery
Grenville has emerged not only as the truth-teller but also something of a hero . . . her novels are important quests that go beyond art
Written in the third-person, blending her mother's plain, brisk language and her own novelistic skills . . . moving . . . Grenville's feminist instincts, which run quietly through her life and writing, built on her mother's example
Grenville inhabits characters with a rare completeness . . . She writes with a poet's sense of rhythm and imagery
Grenville has emerged not only as the truth-teller but also something of a hero . . . her novels are important quests that go beyond art
The power with which Kate Grenville evokes places and people is so remarkable
Diana Athill